


our endless numbered days

by lordbirthdayxv



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Crossdressing, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyamory, Power Play, Slice of Life, Smut, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:42:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29726415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordbirthdayxv/pseuds/lordbirthdayxv
Summary: its the 60s, the city is on fire, but inside their tiny paris apartment, time slows to a crawl, and for a few shiny seconds, they are free to love and be loved in return
Relationships: Chae Hyungwon/Im Changkyun | I.M/Lee Minhyuk/Yoo Kihyun, Chae Hyungwon/Lee Minhyuk, Im Changkyun | I.M/Yoo Kihyun
Comments: 52
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yes this is the stupid the dreamers au sue me for being self indulgent
> 
> playlist for whoever wants The Full Feels:  
> [our endless numbered days](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4jmubhbJmW6imz5igqd2ZK?si=VOroOEWwTl6DJNZZsoEb-w&utm_source=copy-link)

Kihyun isn’t speaking to Changkyun. Again.

It isn’t a new occurrence. Minhyuk is used to them treating each other like inanimate objects. Changkyun is kinder, more indifferent. He winds his way around Kihyun with practiced ease, like walking through an imaginary obstacle course in their tiny, cluttered apartment. Hyungwon hates it, particularly the grungy, olive walls. Bohemian, he says with disgust, and makes Minhyuk, resident contrarian, feel all the more better about purchasing it.

Kihyun likes it about as much as he dislikes Changkyun, which is to say a lot. He moves around like a battering ram, crashing into Changkyun’s carefully constructed boundaries, stepping over all his ley lines in the linoleum floor for the sole reason of destruction for destruction’s sake. In the 6 months that they have been here, Kihyun has successfully laid claim to most of the walls. Changkyun’s beloved Excavation is flanked angrily by Cronus on one side and Hunters in the Snow on the other. 

Elsewhere, Kihyun has covered an entire wall with Bosch, big and small, leaving Changkyun’s singular No. 61 squeezed into a corner, barely visible above the puffed arm of the winged armchair. It amuses Hyungwon to no end (he has a poor opinion of both Rothko and Bosch) but he contents himself with secretive smiles into his coffee mug whenever the old bed in Kihyun’s room creaks in pain after a long argument. 

Right now, he is studiously solving the crossword in the day’s paper, having promptly ignored the page-length coverage of the riots, and Minhyuk is the only one left to diffuse the tension between Kihyun’s back as he grills sausages and Changkyun’s glare as he viciously cuts into his omelette. Minhyuk doesn’t know what the problem is this time, not like he does any other time (Kihyun and Changkyun themselves often forget), and therefore, has no idea what to do except sigh very dramatically.

Changkyun casts him a look and oh okay it’s about the sausages then but really how was he supposed to know that?

He clears his throat and Kihyun instantly turns around as if he had been waiting for it, turner held like a weapon in his fist. “What?” he snaps and Hyungwon bursts into giggles, burying his face deeper into the paper. Minhyuk bites back a smile as Kihyun’s brow creases and he turns off the stove to face them, hands on his hips. 

“I said what?!”

“Changkyun,” Minhyuk urges, “go on baby, tell him.”

Kihyun sneers. “He needs prompting from you to speak now?”

“I don’t see you usually letting him get in a word edgewise,” Hyungwon says breezily before Minhyuk can stop him. 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”

“Guys,” Minhyuk interrupts, banging his fist on the table. Everyone looks to him, Kihyun ready to retort but Minhyuk takes Changkyun’s hand and smiles. “Tell him,” he says gently. Changkyun looks at him through his long, unruly bangs and hesitates. 

Kihyun taps his foot impatiently and Minhyuk is about to snap at him when Changkyun finally speaks.

“I wanted the loukaniko,” he says softly. Hyungwon begins laughing and this time Minhyuk can’t find it in himself to not join him. Kihyun frowns, looks at the bratwurst in the pan and sighs in frustration. 

“Could have told me when I opened the pack yesterday,” he mutters, moving to the refrigerator as Changkyun raises a piece of omelette to his mouth and chews to hide his smile. Hyungwon goes back to his crossword and, peace restored, Minhyuk settles down to eat all the rest of the sausages on the stove. 

Hyungwon likes to nap on the living room cabriole in the afternoons.  
He used to curl up on the balcony swing, soaking up the sun like the largest, laziest housecat, cherry red transistor radio playing Billie Holliday, and eyes half-closed as he flipped through The New Yorker for recipes of all things. He hasn’t been able to do that since the first Molotov cocktail hit the building down the street. A middle-aged widow had been sunbathing on her balcony when it happened. Later, when Minhyuk and Kihyun went to pry for news, they managed to catch a glimpse of her charred body as it was being carried out. Minhyuk had shuddered violently, unable to keep himself from imagining Hyungwon in her place. 

So now here he is, running idle fingers through Hyungwon’s hair as he snoozes on Minhyuk’s lap. Changkyun is at his feet, surreptitiously sketching Kihyun from across the room where he is cutting out photographs for a collage board. He likes to go around the city on the quieter days, taking pictures of anything and everything with the instamatic Hyungwon had bought him last year. He is a self-proclaimed urban photographer but there are more pictures of Hyungwon, Minhyuk, and Changkyun in his portfolio than he cares to admit. Minhyuk doesn’t like to press him too much on that because it irritates him. 

He also has the sneaking suspicion that Kihyun is aware of being observed, if his random moments of prolonged stillness are anything to go by. A look below tells him Changkyun’s sketch is coming along nicely so that was good.

Sweat beads on Minhyuk’s brow, swelling into a fat drop and he only narrowly moves his foot to avoid it plopping directly onto his still wet big toenail. Beside him, there is a little splash as Kihyun grips the edges of the tub with white knuckled hands as he sinks down on Hyungwon’s cock with a low groan that reverberates in Minhyuk’s bones and melds like candy to the humid air of the bathroom. Their chests stick together for a brief moment and then Kihyun is moving, water lapping at his waist and Hyungwon’s teeth on his neck. 

Minhyuk blows on his foot and rues the choice to paint his nails here. Something wet touches his cheek and he turns to find Changkyun, fingers poised to flick more foam at him. Kihyun notices and pulls him close, dragging his teeth across Changkyun’s lower lip. Minhyuk leans back against the stem of the sink and rolls his eyes.

“You are such a greedy whore.”

Changkyun grins against Kihyun’s mouth and Kihyun jerks in Hyungwon’s lap, whatever Changkyun had done, enough to deter him from any reply. Hyungwon is slowly thrusting upward, completely preoccupied with the tender bit of skin at the junction of Kihyun’s neck and shoulder, intent on sucking the biggest, darkest bruise there. 

Changkyun is moaning now, deep and heavy, probably bucking into Kihyun’s hand and Kihyun is imitating his stuttering sounds, a mocking train of _ah ah ah_ accompanying Changkyun’s helpless sobbing. Minhyuk finishes his pinky toe, letting their voices wash over him. It is soothing in many ways, combing through his nerves, making the oppressive heat almost bearable. Hyungwon’s whimpers join in and Minhyuk finally decides to look and listen, eyes slowly glazing over as the orchestra mounts to a crescendo. 

And then Kihyun moves, shoots upward like a harpoon with its rope in Hyungwon’s hands, splashing foam and water all over Minhyuk’s feet and shins. The bright blue polish wrinkles like silk in rough hands and Minhyuk lets out an animalistic growl before climbing into the tub himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they play dress up and kiss and try not to think of the outside

“I will choke you on this tube if you don’t stop moving,” Kihyun threatens, lining Minhyuk’s lower lip with the tapered tip of the lipstick. Minhyuk whines.

“I don’t think she wore carmine in the movie,” he complains once again and Kihyun stops to glare at him.

“I don’t have a very extensive lipstick collection, as you very well know,” he snaps, gesturing to the open vanity box next to him. Truth be told, Minhyuk hadn’t known if he even owned whatever he had.

“You sure like your reds, huh?” 

Kihyun ignores him but faint color rises in his cheeks nonetheless. The door to Kihyun’s bedroom opens and Hyungwon walks in. Light brown hair in gentle waves frame his face on one side, tucked behind his ear on the other. He is clad in Minhyuk’s black turtleneck, a little short on him so there are flashes of his midriff now and then. He has cut off the legs of his houndstooth suit and now wears the bottoms as the tiniest shorts. Kihyun snorts.

“Bacall wears a skirt,” he says sardonically and makes a rude gesture toward Hyungwon’s long legs, “what in the world is that?”

Hyungwon looks at him like a patient, long-suffering mother looks at her youngest, most dim-witted child. “These, my dear, are shorts. And while we’re on the topic of accuracy, Blanche does not wear a deep red lip.”

Kihyun glowers and says _carmine_ under his breath just as Hyungwon twirls around and shakes his ass a little, making Minhyuk bite down on his lower lip to keep from giggling. 

“Lipstick on your damn teeth-!”

They are interrupted by Changkyun who enters bearing Hyungwon’s suit jacket and beret, himself still in his vest and trousers. 

“Changkyunnie aren’t you going to get dressed?” Minhyuk asks, wiping his teeth with the sleeve of his chiffon gown. Changkyun looks up at him and flushes. 

“I don’t- I don’t think I’ll look good,” he mutters. 

Kihyun tuts and walks over to his closet, rummaging inside as Changkyun stands awkwardly in the doorway, shuffling his feet. Kihyun emerges with a grey t-shirt and a belt and tosses them to him. 

“There you go, Kowalski,” he says, “put that on.”

Hyungwon makes a face as Changkyun begins to strip. “I would like to know why you own such horrible things but at the same time, I would like to remain ignorant of your proclivities.”

Kihyun scoffs and marches over to him. “Proclivities? We live together.” he pulls Hyungwon down the by the front of his shirt and kisses him. Hyungwon’s large hands roam down his back to his ass, giving it a squeeze before coaxing Kihyun’s legs upwards, hoisting him up against him. Kihyun opens his mouth and drags it against Hyungwon’s, messy and wet.

“’I don’t like your manners’,” he whispers in his best Lauren Bacall voice. Hyungwon’s soft hair brushes against his face.

“That's my line,” Hyungwon says before tossing him abruptly on the bed where he lands with a yelp on Minhyuk’s lap. Hyungwon pulls Changkyun by the hand and together, they fall in a heap of limbs.

“Guys,” Minhyuk wheezes mournfully under their weight, “my poor gown.”

Hyungwon giggles as Kihyun curses, pushing to get him and Changkyun off of him.

“Why did we dress up if you had to go and ruin it?!”

“It’s not ruined,” comes Changkyun’s voice from above, “I think you all look very nice.”

“I agree,” says Hyungwon, finally wriggling free and adjusting his wig, “we all look very nice. Therefore, we should kiss.”

Changkyun giggles as Minhyuk scoots forward to do just that and Kihyun, caught in the middle with Changkyun’s wistful eyes on him, grumbles a final complaint before pulling him close and pressing his mouth to his. 

Changkyun has been having trouble falling asleep for a while now.

Before, he had been a voluntary night owl but now when sounds of screaming and breakable things breaking shatters the stillness of calm spring nights, he sits on the floor near the window and stares vacantly outside.

Minhyuk finds him like this one night when groping sleepily around, he finds empty space and wrinkled sheets between himself and Kihyun.

There is faint shouting outside the window and changkyun sits by the light of a small kerosene lamp that Kihyun had bought more for the lovely filigree on the bottom than any practical use. Changkyun is straining his eyes, sketching something in his little notebook.

He startles when the bed springs creak and minhyuk comes to sit next to him on the floor.

"Can't sleep?"

A nod. Pencil scratching on paper.

"Is it the noise?"

Shake of the head. Minhyuk cranes his neck to see what he is drawing and its a line drawing of the three of them in bed, empty space between Kihyun and Minhyuk somehow more insistent rendered in pencil.

"Baby," Minhyuk says gently, "come to bed. It's late."

Changkyun looks up at him, his eyes dull. "Its not like we have somewhere to be tomorrow."

Oh.

Minhyuk gets up and walks back to the bed, jaw set. He puts a hand on Kihyun's shoulder and shakes him violently.

Kihyun sits up with a start and Hyungwon groans, grip tightening around his mid-section. Kihyun throws him the dirtiest look he can muster with bleary eyes and then settles on Minhyuk.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Minhyuk points to Changkyun who is still scratching away, not even acknowledging anything else going on. Kihyun glances at him and then back at Minhyuk, eyebrows raised. Minhyuk glares.

"Sing the song," he hisses and Kihyun glares back.

"Its the crack of dawn are you insane-"

"Kihyun," Minhyuk whisper-yells, "sing him the damn song."

Kihyun purses his lips and glances at Changkyun again, his gaze softening for a second before he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Minhyuk settles into bed next to him.

"'And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing. Under an arch of the railway. Love has no ending.'"

Changkyun stops abruptly and looks up. His eyes are liquid and gaze unfocused but he puts the pencil in the middle of the notebook and closes it as Kihyun continues.

"'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet.'"

Slowly, Changkyun moves as if hypnotized. Kihyun's breath hitches slightly when he begins to crawl on all fours toward the bed.

"'I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry.'"

Minhyuk shifts quietly to a side, making space as Kihyun holds his arms open, voice a little unsteady. Changkyun climbs on top of the bed and hesitates, just out of Kihyun's reach.

"'The years shall run like rabbits for in my arms I hold'," Kihyun smiles and beckons and Changkyun slides forward into his waiting arms, "'The Flower of the Ages  
And the first love of the world'."

Kihyun presses Changkyun close and Minhyuk hears it, their heartbeats synchronizing and then evening out. Slowly, Kihyun falls backward on to the pillows and Changkyun follows.

Minhyuk smiles when Changkyun laces his fingers with his and scoots closer, nuzzling into Changkyun's neck.

"Why do you never finish it?" Says Hyungwon sleepily from the other side of the bed, reaching out a hand over Kihyun to card it through Changkyun's hair.

Kihyun scoffs. "Because this one is a baby and doesn't like the sad parts."

It is only partially true. Neither of them does.

"Jouissez sans entraves!" shouts a stranger outside the window and Minhyuk makes a mental note to do so before finally falling asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sex and greek tragedy

Minhyuk pushes both his thumbs into the corners of Kihyun’s mouth, prying it open, digging into the soft flesh under his tongue. 

Kihyun’s eyes are glassy, barely registering anything and as Minhyuk glides forward to kiss him, he whimpers like a wounded animal, weak and defenseless. Minhyuk slips his tongue into Kihyun’s mouth, one hand at his cheek and the other at the back of Changkyun’s head, who is sloppily mouthing at Minhyuk’s dick. Behind Changkyun, Hyungwon spreads his ass cheeks apart and lays his tongue flat against the hole before pushing it in, making Changkyun almost choke between Minhyuk’s legs.

It is a balmy spring evening. Hyungwon has left his radio on in the kitchen where Bardot sings La Madrague and mourns happier days. It grates on Minhyuk’s nerves. Something about the audacity to puncture the life they have made here, in this apartment, in this room, entangled with each other, pouring love into each other’s mouths. He wants to get up and switch it off but Kihyun tugs at his nipple with his teeth and he can’t help but cry out. 

Hyungwon looks up at him and blinks. Then moves up and presses their mouths together. He has two fingers in Changkyun’s ass, who is slowly moving up, up, until he finds Kihyun sucking a bruise around Minhyuk’s clavicle and pulls him away. Kihyun moves as if asleep, mouth parted, and says _darling_ in this low, sweet voice that makes Changkyun push him down into the bed, clamber on to his lap and sink down on his cock. 

Minhyuk watches them as Hyungwon lays him down next to Kihyun. Changkyun rocks back and forth, sighing Kihyun’s name and Minhyuk directs his attention to Hyungwon, who has propped one of Minhyuk’s feet on his shoulder. With a sharp thrust, he bottoms out and Minhyuk groans, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. He gropes for Kihyun’s hand and entwines their fingers as Hyungwon fucks into him, pace as slow as if wading through honey. 

Ecoute les orgues elles jouent pour toi, croons the little red radio and finally, finally, something to get lost and drown in. Minhyuk turns to face Kihyun and against the gently rocking rhythm of their bodies, their mouths slot together like misaligned drawers of an old filing cabinet. 

The sky is a warm blue when they decide to take a bus into the city. At the turnabout near Rue Sofflot, Hyungwon spots a café advertising beef Bourdelaise and because he hasn’t had red meat due to his (self-imposed) diet recently, he has to have it. Kihyun makes them disembark before Hyungwon has a chance to openly salivate and they make the short walk to the café. 

Hyungwon is now alternating between eating and feeding Changkyun, who opens his little mouth like a hungry baby bird as soon as Hyungwon’s fork hovers in front of his face. Minhyuk sits with his coffee opposite them, staring out the window as Kihyun reads next to him, cigarette dangling from his fingers.

His eyes are fixed on a group of young people on the other side of the street, 3 men and a woman, smoking and trying their best to look nonchalant but Minhyuk can tell who they are. A little way off there are more of them, all of them students, just hanging around. It makes Minhyuk uneasy but Hyungwon’s nasally voice pulls him out of his reverie.

“What, pray tell,” he is saying, an eyebrow raised, “is your takeaway from this?”

Kihyun scoffs, eyes not leaving the page. “They tried to muddy a god’s lineage. They had it coming. 

“Are you trying to tell me the gods are nothing but vengeful or is it simply Bacchus?”

Oh god. Minhyuk exchanges a look with Changkyun who shrugs and pulls Hyungwon’s plate toward himself as Hyungwon gears up for the inevitable argument. Kihyun is still not taking the bait.

“You do not rationalize something that isn’t human to begin with,” he says calmly, turning a page, “don’t try to comprehend a god with your measly human binoculars.”

“Why do you attach vengefulness to him if he is so far removed from human ideas? If he is truly a god, he doesn’t have to prove his legitimacy to anyone.” Hyungwon leans forward and smirks, adding more to fuel the fire than anything else: “Euripides is nothing but nostalgia and plot convenience.”

That gets Kihyun. Minhyuk watches with mild interest as he puts _The Bacchae_ face down on the table, his glasses on top and passes his half-diminished cigarette to Minhyuk’s lips before glaring at Hyungwon. 

“Don’t lecture me about plot convenience when you’re an avid fan of deus ex machinas.”

“It makes sense in its context-”

“Orestes should have died to pay for his sins,” Kihyun cuts him off, “Pallas is far from a just adjudicator and Apollo puts every scummy lawyer to shame.”

“Well, well look who’s judging gods by human standards.”

“I think they’re both a little extreme….”

Minhyuk takes a long pull from the cigarette and looks to Changkyun, a little surprised that he had spoken. Kihyun glares at him and he looks like he gravely regrets every choice he has ever made.

“Extreme?” Kihyun spits, “tell that to the polis bootlicker.”

Hyungwon gawks. “Excuse me?! Aeschylus believed in the greater good of mankind.”

“Funny how submission to the government was his only solution-”

“I feel like,” Changkyun speaks again, a little louder, “you’re both forgetting that none of these writers were rebels or revolutionaries.” His ears glow a bright red but he continues, crooking a thumb out the window at the now growing cluster of students on the sidewalk. “They, however, are. And we should go before things get out of control.”

Adequately chastened, Kihyun and Hyungwon shut up immediately and begin collecting their coats. Minhyuk smiles at Changkyun and takes his arm on the way out. He wants to kiss him but now is neither the time nor place. 

Later then. At home. Their home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> war and peace

So it turns out Kihyun does like his reds.

Minhyuk can only sit back on the bed and admire the way the velvet hugs Kihyun’s narrow frame, the glass beads glinting almost burgundy in the early afternoon light. He fastens the wig on and begins to style it. Hair two fingers worth of thickness, almost too silky to shape but shape Kihyun does, small, tight rolls piled on the crown of his forehead. Pinned and secured, he moves on to the rest that hangs too low for his liking, expertly handles it between his fingers and pins it up so it leaves his neck exposed. 

Minhyuk wonders what the occasion is. Then remembers there is none. 

Kihyun is running the brush through wettened mascara and Minhyuk watches, face half buried under a book of poetry he has been pretending to read for the better part of an hour, as he carefully brushes through his eyelashes, darkening and lengthening them. 

“Pretty,” Minhyuk breathes. Kihyun stops and looks at him through the mirror. 

“’Then come kiss me sweet and twenty’,” he says, mischief dancing flame-like in his eyes, “’youth’s a stuff will not endure’.”

Minhyuk abandons his book on the rumpled sheets and walks, slightly dazed, to Kihyun’s side. Kihyun turns to face him and Minhyuk settles in his lap, legs on either side, feet brushing the delicate tulle shawl pooled around Kihyun’s waist. 

“Yours will,” he whispers, gently nudging Kihyun’s face upwards, their lips a hair’s breadth away, “you will always be young, always beautiful.”

Kihyun laughs, hushed and private, hands coming up to cup Minhyuk’s face like the finest china. “Silly boy,” he says and presses a kiss to Minhyuk’s lips, then another, and another. He lingers, nibbles a bit on Minhyuk’s bottom lip before kissing the corners of his mouth. 

“I love you. All of you.”

“And we, you.” 

Minhyuk leans in and picks a stray eyelash off Kihyun’s cheek and carefully deposits it on the back of his hand. Kihyun watches, amused, as Minhyuk closes his eyes and conjures up the apartment, the green walls and Kihyun’s paintings and Hyungwon’s radio and Changkyun’s pencils that he leaves like coins around the house. Thinks of their things and themselves, living beyond the tumultuous times, growing old and weary and needier than they now were. He thinks of a future bursting with all of these things and blows the eyelash away. 

“What did you wish for?” 

“Everything I have now to last forever.”

Changkyun looks like he is about to cry and Minhyuk doesn’t blame him.

Kihyun is seated on the ottoman but somehow seems to tower over Changkyun through his sheer immersion in his character. Hyungwon sits at Minhyuk’s feet near the divan, intently observing as Kihyun, still in his red dress, gets to his feet and looks at Changkyun with a mixture of hurt and trepidation.

“Oh Rhett,” Kihyun is saying, wringing his gloved hands, “when I knew I loved you I ran home to tell you,” he latches on to Changkyun’s arm and Hyungwon lets out a low whistle at the act, “oh darling- darling-!”

Minhyuk sees it first, the odd, dark light in Changkyun’s eyes as he shakes Kihyun off like water on his skin. 

“Did it ever occur to you that I loved you as much as a man can love a woman?”

And oh that wasn’t in the script. Kihyun catches on, slowly, like fire to wet timber but Changkyun isn’t done. He backs a few feet away but it is strong, his stride, affecting a detachment rather than his earlier panic. He glares at Kihyun and continues.

“You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip." 

In the wake of the silence that drapes itself heavy as brocade over the room, none of them moves nor breathes. Minhyuk holds his breath and hears his heartbeat drum in his ears. His eyes are fixed on Kihyun just as Hyungwon’s, who is slowly reaching for Minhyuk’s hand as if asking for reassurance. Suddenly his earlier wish seems fragile, naïve. There was so much wrong here, perhaps it wasn’t wise to hope for more. 

And then Kihyun, as calm as ever, speaks: “But you love me.”

Changkyun’s jaw trembles and Minhyuk makes a move to get up and end it, put a stop to this madness that was certainly going to rip their home to shreds if he didn’t act now but Hyungwon’s hand clasps his, tight as a vice. Minhyuk looks down at him and he stares back, mouths _don’t_ and turns back to watch the other two. Hesitantly, Minhyuk sits back down, fear creeping like ants up his spine. 

In front of them, Kihyun cocks his head to a side, shoulders loose as he begins working off his glove on one hand, finger by finger. Changkyun’s eyes lock on his hand, following his movements with a strange sort of reverence in his eyes. 

“You love me,” Kihyun declares, moving forward, silk glove slipping off his delicate wrist with a gentle swish. He steps toward Changkyun, who is standing his ground, and stops mere inches from his face. “And that is your misfortune.”

Before Changkyun can so much as move, Kihyun pulls his arm back in a graceful arc and slaps him across the face with the glove. The sound rings like a gunshot in the still apartment. Changkyun’s left cheek glows a vivid scarlet.

“Next time,” Kihyun says, voice soft as a songbird’s croon, “stick to the script.”

Hyungwon gets to his feet just as Changkyun turns to look at Kihyun. “Alright, that’s enough-”

But he gets no time to finish because the very next moment, Kihyun grabs Changkyun by the collar and begins dragging him back to his bedroom. Before a bewildered Hyungwon and an equally bewildered Minhyuk can intervene, Kihyun throws Changkyun inside and slams the door behind them. 

“I-” Minhyuk starts, blinking rapidly as they hear Changkyun gasp before he is quickly cut off. 

Hyungwon shakes his head in resignation and begins to head to the kitchen. “Remind me to never play dress-up again.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> her silence is mine, her eyes mine

Minhyuk remembers the first time he met Hyungwon. It was at Place de la Concorde.

He had just arrived in Paris, bright-eyed and eager. Saw his first Bergman film. Was so absolutely thrilled with Nicole Courcel after watching her in Sundays and Cybele that he had tried cutting bangs like her and had failed miserably. 

Now he stands there, bad haircut hidden underneath a cheap beret, holding a photograph of Chagall’s La Place de la Concorde and squinting up at the monument. It is summer, as it always is when good things happen, and the sun was making Minhyuk sweat in his thin, cotton shirt.

“How disappointing,” says a voice to his right and it’s a tall man with dark, shoulder length hair that he blows out of his face when he pouts. 

“What is?” Minhyuk asks, interest piqued in the stranger’s appraisal of the obelisk. The stranger looks up at the thing and wrinkles his nose. 

“She deserved to be beheaded in a prettier place.”

Minhhyuk blinks. “I’m sorry who- ?”

The man looks at him and Minhyuk is sure (sort of) he doesn’t mean it but says, in the most condescending tone possible: “Why, Marie Antoinette, of course, who else?”

Minhyuk colours profusely. “Oh! Oh- I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was here.”

The stranger nods noncommittally, directing his gaze back to the monument. He has big eyes, like the biggest, darkest coffee beans. “It was today. October 16, 1793. I thought if I came on the day I’d see something… I don’t know. Something. Incredibly extraordinary. Something to give me hope.”

He seems to be talking more to himself now. Minhyuk watches as something like old sorrow flashes across the man’s face before he looks at Minhyuk. “Hope in a place marked with death. That’d be something, wouldn’t it?”

Minhyuk stares, a little light headed. He doesn’t know what this feeling is (he will discover later that it is kinship) but he wants to know more about this beautiful stranger looking for hope in the clutter and clatter of Paris. 

“Well,” he says after a long pause, “if it’s any consolation, I too am dissatisfied with it,” he holds up the Chagall photograph, “I took this at the exhibition in Chicago a few years ago and finally came here to see the wonderful sight that inspired this,” he looks up at the obelisk and squints, “and yet, I see neither flying men nor towering women holding babies.”

The stranger snorts a laugh and takes the picture from Minhyuk’s hand to study it. “Pretty silly, this. I drew better when I was 9.”

Minhyuk gasps, offended. “It’s _Marc Chagall!_ ”

“And I’m Hyungwon,” he grins, holding out his hand and his eyes, they glow, strange eyes, long, almond shaped…

“‘…and each seemed to sail along by itself, like a little boat’,” Minhyuk whispers. Hyungwon raises his eyebrows. 

“Sorry?”

“Oh,” Minhyuk starts and quickly shakes his outstretched hand, head bowed to hide his blush, “I’m sorry. I’m Minhyuk. Very pleased to meet you, even if you’re a fiend with no taste.”

Hyungwon laughs and it’s like rustling sheets weighed down with warm bodies. “I can acquire it, if you are inclined to aid,” he smiles and thrusts his hands in the pockets of his trousers, “over a cup of coffee, perhaps? There’s a good café near Arc de Triomphe that makes splendid strudels.”

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, not here in this alien city, not now when it’s still summer and summer was no time to get one’s hopes up only to have them dashed on iced pavements in winter. He doesn’t want to but the stranger looks earnest and Minhyuk always did wear his heart on his sleeve. 

And so he says yes, yes to a cup of coffee, yes to staying in touch _yes_ when long, spindly fingers carded through his jaggedly cut hair, and yes to a shared life. Here, in this city, which, after their little date, was not so alien anymore.

“Do you think it will be over soon?”

Hyungwon is sat on the floor near the living room window. He has opened it to let the evening air in and it carries something sweet like powdered sugar mixed with the bitter taste of ash. Changkyun sleeps with his head on his lap, snoring gently and Hyungwon runs his hands through Changkyun’s hair, staring distractedly out the window. 

Minhyuk looks down into his coffee and shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I have a feeling it’s only just begun.”

Hyungwon hums and doesn’t say anything, just leans his head against the window sill and closes his eyes. Peaceful quiet stretches for long moments between them until the sound of running water from the bathroom is the only thing moving in the room. 

“They were at the Arc de Triomphe today,” Hyungwon says suddenly and Minhyuk almost starts, “the students, the teachers. All of them.”

“Did you want to go?”

“No,” Hyungwon snorts, as if the very idea of activism was appalling to him (it was). He grows quiet again and Minhyuk doesn’t interrupt, letting him collect his thoughts and speak when he felt he was ready. It comes a few minutes later.

“Do you remember the café?”

Minhyuk does. “What café?”

Hyungwon raises an eyebrow. “ _The_ café.”

“No idea what you mean, there are hundreds of cafés in the city.”

Hyungwon knows Minhyuk is being willfully obtuse. They have been locked up in their apartment for a week after all and Minhyuk needed his scant scraps of entertainment. However, he still looks annoyed. 

“Never mind,” he says and goes back to looking out the window, accidentally pulling at Changkyun’s hair who moans in his sleep. Hyungwon quickly shushes him and leans down to kiss his forehead, whispering softly until Changkyun turns and burrows further into his lap. Minhyuk watches from afar, warmth trailing down his throat and dripping into his stomach. He decides to be kind. 

He puts his cup on the coffee table and walks over to the other two, sitting down near them. Hyungwon refuses to acknowledge his presence. 

Minhyuk moves closer and nestles his face in the crook of Hyungwon’s neck. The angle is uncomfortable and he is sure his neck will cramp in minutes but Hyungwon smells like lavender from the lotion he nabs from Minhyuk’s vanity, and tea leaves that Kihyun places in packets in all their closets. Minhyuk breathes the scent of home into his lungs and sighs.

“Of course I remember,” he whispers, lips moving against Hyungwon’s skin, “it’s where you insulted the greatest artist that ever lived.”

Hyungwon laughs quietly. “Don’t let Kihyun catch you saying that.”

Minhyuk pulls away and looks at Hyungwon in the rapidly dimming evening. He is thinner, his hair a touch longer, but his eyes are the same, not blue but a deep, dark brown. Like two little boats sailing along a shipless ocean. 

“I love you,” Minhyuk says and closes his eyes as Hyungwon’s mouth finds his. They kiss like old lovers, although they haven’t been lovers all that long, but it feels like an eternity past, every moment sparkling like wine, lovelier with each new year come and gone. 

Underneath the arches of their necks, Changkyun whimpers softly and says, “Can’t one sleep in peace in this house?”

Minhyuk breaks away and giggles before pinching Changkyun’s cheeks, making him growl. “Why, if you want a kiss all you have to do is ask.”

He is pressing kisses to Changkyun’s hands and Hyungwon is smooching his cheeks when Kihyun walks in, naked as the day he was born, toweling his hair. He looks at the commotion and frowns.

“Easy on the kitten, you two.”

Changkyun growls from between the other two, trying to pry his way out of their chokehold. “I’m not a cat.”

Kihyun shrugs and turns to go to his room. “Didn’t say that. I said you were a kitten,” he replies and promptly shuts his door as Minhyuk and Hyungwon resume the dastardly activity of lavishing Changkyun with love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the exhibition never happened yes i know but for the sake of min and hyungwon's chagall eyes, we will assume chagall exhibited his lithographs in chicago sometime in the early 60s


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Never fall in love?"
> 
> "Always," said the count. "I am always in love.”

In the summer of 1965, Minhyuk finds himself in a suite at the Hotel Ritz Paris. 

Hyungwon is in Nice doing god knows what. Minhyuk doesn’t want to think too much about it. They have had one of their biggest fights yet and Minhyuk, intent upon making the best of tonight as well as the small amount he has been paid in exchange for a painting, is drinking his wallet away at L’Entracte.

An hour into his binge, he was discreetly propositioned by a rather trim looking man, whom Minhyuk is sure was clad from head to toe in Facconable. He is also sure it was the alcohol that made him so readily agree to be driven to a “quiet place”.

Fifteen minutes later, however, Minhyuk regrets every choice he has ever made when the man whispers “Ma cherie, Adalene” against the side of his neck. After a brief apology that gets the usual slurs hurled at him, he is down at the bar, gazing at gently glinting bottles behind the counter, patiently ignoring the barman’s inquisitive stare. 

“Puis-je vous apporter quelque chose, monsieur?”

Minhyuk breaks out of his daze and blinks. “Pardon?”

The barman repeats his question and Minhyuk thinks for a second. “Quelle est la chose la moins chère que vous ayez?” 

The barman tries to school his expression but Minhyuk can see the judgement there. He moves behind the counter and begins to mix a rum and coke. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Minhyuk takes his drink to one of the ornately upholstered sofas at the back, trying to slink into the shadows. He can see some heads turn, likely at his clothes, as he sits down to nurse the overpriced cocktail that he would normally never buy. Tonight was a special night in every sense of the word. Minhyuk hunches over the glass and tries not to think about Hyungwon, about the ugly feeling it stirs in his chest when he thinks of where he is and what he is doing. Whom he is with. 

More than anything, he tries not to think about the man in the expensive suite upstairs whom he had tried to have sex with a little less than an hour ago. Its fine, he thinks, Hyungwon couldn’t care less.

Then immediately realizes he is thinking of Hyungwon and berates himself for all his thoughts circling back to him. 

“You can’t say that,” a soft voice says to his right and he welcomes the opportunity to eavesdrop if that meant not being trapped in his own head, “they’re two distinctly different styles.”

Minhyuk turns his head a little to see three men absorbed in conversation. The man who had spoken is hunched over, his bad posture making him look smaller and mousier than he is. His index finger traces the rim of his glass, a source of clear discomfort for the severe looking man next to him, who frowns and pulls it away with a little more force than necessary. 

“That doesn’t refute the fact that one is better than the other,” he says matter-of-factly. 

“You only say that because your nostalgia gets the better of you,” the smaller man mutters almost inaudibly, “discrediting art based on your personal biases seems disingenuous at best.”

The severe man snorts. “One always judges art based on one’s personal feelings. Don’t try to convince me that your judgment is impartial or otherwise unimpaired by your own bias. 

The third man glances between them and tucks his blond hair behind his ear, his eyes shining with all the glee of a spectator. “I love it when you argue. You two have such great chemistry.”

Minhyuk can’t help it. He snorts and giggles, belatedly covering his mouth with a hand. It immediately draws the attention of the severe looking man who looks over at him and scowls.

“Did no one ever tell you it’s impolite to eavesdrop?”

Minhyuk straightens up and tries to look apologetic but fails miserably at containing his giggles. The man is looking more irritated by the second and Minhyuk might be drunk but the last thing he wants is to get thrown out of the bar on a complaint from an art snob. 

“I’m so sorry,” he manages at last and hiccups, covering his mouth, “I didn’t intend to, I promise, I just-” he points to the third man who looks hugely offended at the end of the paint stained finger, “he’s doing a poor job of trying to sleep with you.”

In hindsight, Minhyuk thinks he was lucky there was only one other couple sitting near him at the time. The blond man colours furiously and blinks very fast.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demands. The mousy looking guy looks up from his glass and fixes him with a curious look.

“You don’t want to sleep with us?”

The blond stammers and Minhyuk has to shove his whole fist in his mouth to keep from bursting out in laughter. The severe man regards him for a second before leaving his table and walking over to him. Minhyuk has about 5 seconds to process it before the man is sliding into the seat in front of him. 

“Well,” he says, crossing his legs and leaning back comfortably, “sounds like you think you can do better.”

Minhyuk opens his mouth and closes it. Then opens it again but nothing comes out. The man raises an elegant eyebrow and waits.

“Um… ho-honestly if it were up to me I’d just ask you.”

Minhyuk is thankful for the courage imparted to him by all the alcohol he has consumed up until now but his relief is short-lived. The man leans across the table, the golden light from above catching on his impossibly high cheekbones, and Minhyuk has the distinct feeling of being sized up by a predator. He can faintly hear the blond man saying something but he cannot for the life of him figure out what it is. He is locked in a rather intense staring match with the man who looks more and more like a fox with each passing second. 

“Ask then,” he says and the room is suddenly completely airless. Minhyuk tries to draw in a breath but it gets stuck hallway down his throat and he has to cough rather violently to a side. The man neither gets up to help him nor does he flinch. He simply stares, patiently waiting as if he has all the time in the world. 

“Are you okay?” the small man asks, concern lacing his soft voice. Minhyuk nods, coughing a bit more before clearing his throat and straightening up.

“You want me to what?” he asks, still a little winded.

“Ask to sleep with us.”

“ _Us?_ ”

The man nods, glancing over to his partner. “Us.”

“Wait a minute,” the blond man interrupts, his voice rising, “I didn’t agree to this-”

“That’s alright, Astor, you’re free to leave.”

Astor’s face pinches in anger and he gets to his feet, pushing his chair back. The small man looks up at him sympathetically.

“I’m so sorry,” he says as Astor collects his coat, muttering curses in French under his breath as he storms out. His friend leaves his table and comes over at Minhyuk’s as well.

“Hello,” he says with a little smile, “I’m Changkyun,” he looks over to his partner and frowns, “at least introduce yourself before harassing him.”

His partner rolls his eyes. “Kihyun.”

“Minhyuk,” Minhyuk says slowly, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“Well?” 

“Well what?”

Kihyun huffs impatiently. “Are you coming with us or not?”

“We have a room here,” Changkyun props his chin on his palm and smiles. He smiles a lot, Minhyuk notices, his little mouth curving upwards as if he has a million lovely secrets, well-kept and old as time, and he would whisper them in your ear if you asked. 

What would Hyungwon say? But Minhyuk finds it hard to locate a good reason not to indulge himself. There was nothing between them (yet) and Hyungwon hadn’t called in the two days since he had left. Who knew if he was even coming back (he would the next week to a rather pleasant surprise)?

“Yeah,” Minhyuk breathes, clears his throat, “I- I’d love to.”

Later, he is on his stomach on a soft bed that smells like tea leaves, hands on his skin, tender and kind, and Kihyun’s teeth nipping relentlessly at his shoulder. His cock drags against the sheets and he is trying to muffle his voice against the pillow but Kihyun reaches around and pries his mouth open, weighs his jaw down with two fingers pressing down on his tongue. 

His eyes drift to Changkyun who is reclining next to them, his naked skin glowing almost wet in the warm light. Minhyuk had stammered a little in the beginning and hesitantly asked who went where, inexperience shining like a jewel that he was sure would make the two strangers regret ever bringing him up here. 

Kihyun had pushed him back on to the bed and climbed on top, catching his earlobe between his teeth before whispering, “he likes to watch,” and that had been enough said on the subject. 

Now, he angles his hips just so and Minhyuk whimpers, saliva collecting in the corners of his mouth, dripping down onto the pillow. Changkyun clicks his tongue and gently pets his hair.

“Can we keep him?” he asks, eyes locked with Minhyuk’s. His fingers scratch Minhyuk’s scalp, almost lulling him to sleep if not for Kihyun’s cock brushing against his prostate. Kihyun’s fingers slip out of his mouth to hold to his chin.

“I don’t know, baby, I don’t think he wants to be kept.”

Minhyuk wholeheartedly disagrees but cannot find it in him to respond so he gurgles incoherently and then moans when Kihyun’s hand wraps around his throat with just enough pressure to make his vision distort.

“Words, please.”

“Yes,” Minhyuk wheezes as Kihyun’s grip tightens, “keep me, please, I want to be kept you.”

Changkyun smiles his most disarming smile as he leans forward and kisses him. His tongue, his obscenely long tongue slips into Minhyuk’s mouth before he pulls away and arches upward to kiss Kihyun. Minhyuk presses his face into the pillow and groans, bucking once against the sheets as he cums. 

Changkyun presses his nose against his cheek, his hand carding through Minhyuk’s hair. “We’ll take good care of you,” he whispers, “I promise.”

Minhyuk sighs contentedly and surrenders himself to the idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i put them in the room hemingway stayed in but that's a minor detail in my own head dw it's just fun to think they'd fuck in his room


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am the rest between two notes,  
> which are somehow always in discord  
> because Death’s note wants to climb over—  
> but in the dark interval, reconciled,  
> they stay there trembling.  
> And the song goes on, beautiful.

It is summer again.

The sun beats down on the backs of their necks but the cool breeze is quick to soothe. There is color high in Hyungwon’s cheeks and his eyes are drooping from the heat and the weight of sleepless hours resting on his brow. He has an arm around Changkyun’s shoulder, who is hunched and bent and altogether too thin. Minhyuk had almost told him to stay home but realized, with the words on the tip of his tongue, what terrible cruelty that would be.

“We are gathered here today, to pay our respects to a man of God, a man of virtue and strength, loved by his friends and his family-”

We are his family, Minhyuk thinks, only us. Nobody else. Wind whistles through the leaves of the old yew, tears away a fragile few flowers that sweep like a shower of rain on their heads. One lands in Minhyuk’s shirt collar and he plucks it out. Red, the brightest, loveliest red, like the color of a pair of lips that he remembers from centuries ago, perhaps thousands of years. Something ethereal, something beautiful.

Something eternal. 

Changkyun is humming. It thrums like a current of electricity beneath the pastor’s monotone droll. An old song. Something about trees? 

Minhyuk wants to listen but his ears are ringing with the gentle swishing of the wind, like he is thousands of miles up in the air, suspended among the clouds, the air rushing bloodlike through his ears. 

“…And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also-”

Hyungwon’s shaking knees have gently hit the soft, overturned earth. His eyes like sunken ships swirling in the folds of a forlorn sea, staring sightlessly at something none of them can see. _I will never know how you see red and you will never know how I see it._

But it is carmine, says a whisper in his ear, how can you see red where there is nothing but carmine?

And really, what a juvenile mistake to make. Long summer afternoons, decked with scarlets and reds but most importantly, carmines, whir past Minhyuk’s eyes until all he can see is a vermillion line of life trickling steadily out of a nose with a bridge high as its bearer’s opinion of himself. He remembers his mouth inches away from another, hands cupping a face like he was Atlas balancing the world on his shoulders, whispering a hopeful prayer to whichever god was listening.

You will always be young, he had said with the reverence of a dasi, always beautiful.

“But I rejoice this day that he is with my Savior, Jesus. And in honor of my friend, I say… Ring out the welcome. Swing wide the gates. Choirs of angels stand and sing, ‘Amazing Grace.’”

Changkyun has moved and Minhyuk can see a bundle leaves and flowers. Yew shoots. When had he plucked them? But he is moving forward and placing them neatly atop Kihyun’s folded hands. Minhyuk wants to ask him what he is doing but the pastor beats him to it. 

“I’m afraid that isn’t custom in Christian burials-”

“You’ve said your piece,” Changkyun cuts him off, his voice raspy and pregnant with grief, “this is how I say mine.”

It is later, much, much later, in the cool shadow of the ancient yew that Minhyuk leans against Hyungwon and cries. It isn’t easy to cry. His sobs have a tendency to stick like candy in his throat before he can spit them out, forceful and harsh. 

Beside him, Changkyun has discarded his cane and now lies on his side next to the disturbed rectangle of earth. He is still humming a song, his bony, wrinkled fingers caressing the soil as tender as a mother cradling a newborn’s head. If he listens, Minhyuk can discern the song now.

We lay my love and I, beneath the weeping willow  
But now alone I lie and weep beside the tree

Minhyuk wants to scream. Its yew, he wants to yell, there are no willows here, Changyunnie, snap out of it! But he cannot bring himself to do anything but hiccup into Hyungwon’s worn shoulder. 

Tears, bright and sparkling, slip from the corners of Changkyun’s eyes, make their way into the grooves like tributaries etched in his skin, and seep into the earth. “Singing 'Oh willow waly' till my lover return to me.”

And the wind continues to blow, scattering flowers like pomegranate seeds across the land. They would happily consume the seeds, if it meant descending to where the dead lay in eternal rest. Hyungwon’s hand fists in the grass and comes away full of crushed red petals that he stares at as if seeing a flower for the very first time. 

“There is a pain in my chest,” he says slowly and Minhyuk raises his face to look at him. Hyungwon blinks and it looks like a chore, like all his energy he is putting into opening and closing his eyes. His hand splays across his chest like the spindly legs of a spider. 

“Minhyuk,” he asks in a voice like a broken bowstring, “I think my heart is broken.”

Minhyuk holds him in his arms as he shakes but does not cry. He simply goes on shaking like a flame in the wind, teetering between persevering and giving up. 

Minhyuk remembers reading somewhere that the purpose of the monument is to insert a dead and vanished past into the living present. 

When he picks up his old chisel in his hands, they tremble once, twice, but then stay steady enough. He hasn’t been in his workshop in nearly a decade since they moved to the Isle of Wight. It is still early in the morning and relatively cold but Minhyuk is thinking of the past, of Paris and London, and high cheekbones and long, fox eyes. 

Kihyun used to love the beaches here. He liked it better when it rained and the sea swelled like the belly of a primordial goddess but the sun glinting off the gentle waves was a sight he never tired of. Minhyuk has all the pictures he ever took of the sun setting over the azure sea. He plans to frame them all by hand later.

As he gets to work on the slab of granite and tries not to hammer his own finger joints flat, he thinks of what time is made of, especially now, when it falls away like pieces of soggy plaster but also encases them all in the tenderness of memories past. When he looks back on their days together, Minhyuk can all but tell one thing. For some, brief years in their meaningless lives, they had been happy. To taste of true happiness was an honor not many could boast of. Minhyuk can proudly say that he can.

Across the yard in the small, stone cottage, Changkyun and Hyungwon sleep, tangled together like the withered braid of a belle past her prime, unaware of Minhyuk and his barely steady hands carving lines from Kihyun’s favorite Rilke poem into a slab of granite that will soon replace the nondescript stone cross currently at the head of Kihyun’s grave. They will know when it is complete and together they will oversee its fixture beneath the yew tree. 

For now, Minhyuk busies his hands with etching words in stone, reminding himself of a lover dead but not gone, of time past but not forgotten. 

“This is the hour of lead,” he murmurs as he chisels away, “Remembered, if outlived.”

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –  
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/ajghar1)


End file.
